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She held her palm extended, waiting for Hazelwood to return her possession. There was no avoiding his gaze.

He watched her closely. “I suspect there would be fewer husband hunters if more women had bank balances in their favor.” He placed the book in her hand. “Do you know what you’re looking for in a husband, Miss Fawkener?”

She knew what she did not want—a man who would see through her and interfere with her plan to recover her father. She tried to think what Hazelwood expected an earnest husband hunter to say. “A man with connections, with a respectable name, and a decent income.”

“That’s setting the bar quite low. You don’t require any distinction of person or character?”

“I suppose you think every maiden dreams of meeting a handsome prince.”

He shook his head. “Not at all. In my experience princes are fat and dissolute with mistresses old enough to be your grandmother. But if you’ve so few requirements, we should be able to find you a husband in a fortnight. A ball here and there, an appearance or two in an opera box, maybe a few circuits of the park, and some fellow will fall to his knees in the accepted form and offer you his hand and a generous allowance.”

That we bothered her. She might be seasick, or land-sick, or whatever it was that kept her feeling so unsettled, but she wasn’t stupid, and she’d dealt with men trying to maneuver around her before. The Englishman was different in his tactics, but not his aim, after all. There was a word for his attitude. It was something her father would say. It would come to her in a moment.

Just as she became accustomed to the carriage with its ripple of movement over the cobbles like bumping over rapids in a mountain stream, it stopped.

Hazelwood’s hand was on the door. “I’m sure when you open the book, you’ll discover that the author recommends the services of a milliner and dressmaker before you level your weapon at a likely bird.” He descended and held out his hand to her. “I’ll collect you at ten tomorrow morning.”

The word for his manner came to her then—cheeky. Her rescuer was a cheeky fellow, full of easy confidence that he could make things go his way.

“I think I’ll read the book first.”

A brief word of caution is now in order. Upon arriving in London and beginning to go about in society, the Husband Hunter will observe many more gentlemen than she is used to seeing at home in her country town or village. Neither the village church nor the local assembly has likely ever drawn more than a few gentlemen into her orbit, while it is the nature of the great metropolis to draw men of all ranks and characters to mingle together seeking both prominence and pleasure as their individual characters direct them.

The Husband Hunter will not know at first glance which of these gentlemen has the respectable character she seeks. All may appear equally fashionable, equally polished in manner. Rather than descend into giddiness at the apparently limitless supply of gentlemen, she must develop the habit of listening carefully to a man’s speech and discerning from it, his true character. Where there are any hints from his manner of speaking of that he may be at heart a scoundrel, she must take steps to find credible informants to further elucidate his character.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter Four

When Hazelwood returned to the club, his fellow spies, Blackstone and Clare, stripped to their waists and wearing padded leather gloves, were sparring with words and fists at one end of the cavernous coffee room. Nate Wilde, the club’s man of all work, was setting out a tray of sandwiches and liquid refreshments. Occasionally, Wilde offered a word of approval or advice to the pugilists.

Wilde, a youth in his early twenties, rescued from a life of crime nearly ten years earlier, had acquired the manners, accent, and above all, the wardrobe of a gentleman, though no fashionable gilding could hide the youth’s rough compact build, his toothy grin, and pronounced ears. He made excellent coffee, knew London’s streets intimately, and didn’t hesitate to back up his gentlemen in a fight.

As sobriety was a club rule, the steaming punch Wilde set out would likely be made from tea, spices, and hot milk. Neither Hazelwood nor Blackstone minded the ban on spirits, though Clare grumbled about it. The irony of Hazelwood’s disguise in the past year had been that he’d been perfectly sober while wearing claret-stained cravats and waistcoats reeking of brandy. He liked being sober, liked a clear head and quick reflexes. He had willingly accepted the benefits of sobriety in spite of its less-visible disadvantages. Sustained sobriety was humbling. It tended to make a man acutely aware of past follies, misjudgments, and character failings.

His friends exchanged another flurry of blows before Blackstone got in a solid hit. Sweating and panting, the two opponents let Wilde remove their gloves and hand them towels.

Hazelwood helped himself to the punch while the other two toweled off. He was particularly fond of the club’s coffee room with its high, curved ceiling, long comfortable sofas, and absence of feminine objects. He didn’t have brothers, and his school friends had fallen away from him as his fortunes sank. In Blackstone and Clare he had new friends, men of keen intelligence and a proper appreciation of a good fight.

“Hazelwood, did you meet the girl?” Clare asked, picking up a mug of punch and wrinkling his nose over the steaming drink.

“What girl? A new case?” Blackstone toweled his head dry. “Has Goldsworthy removed you from night work?”

Hazelwood nodded. “The girl is the daughter of that agent that went missing.”

“George Fawkener? Remind me where he disappeared.” Blackstone tossed his towel aside and accepted a mug from the discreetly hovering Wilde.

“Somewhere between Kourdistan and Kabul.”

“What happened to him?” Blackstone took his first taste of the drink.

Hazelwood lifted a brow. “You think Goldsworthy would tell? Fawkener was strangled, or beheaded, or tossed off a minaret in Bokhara. In any case, left for the birds and dogs.”

“And the government has done what for the poor sod?” Clare asked.

The three friends looked at each other. They knew the answer to that one. Exactly nothing. The Foreign Office had a way of regarding lost agents as private travelers for whom no help or ransom could be offered. Two years earlier Blackstone had spent his personal fortune ransoming his half-brother and a dozen other captives from a Greek warlord.

Hazelwood felt a pang of sympathy for Jane Fawkener. Her father probably mattered to her. “The Foreign Office has arranged for his royal highness to bestow a posthumous knighthood on the dead hero.”